Business & Finance

Tyco International Ltd. announced the resignation of chairman and chief executive Dennis Kozlowski for "personal reasons." Monday's move came a day before Kozlowski was indicted in New York for alleged sales-tax violations. Share prices in the Hamilton, Bermuda-based conglomerate have fallen sharply in recent months as questions surface about its accounting practices. They lost a further $5.90 Monday, or more than a quarter of their value, closing at $16.05 on the New York Stock Exchange.

IBM will sell most of its hard-drive operations to Hitachi Ltd., Japan's largest maker of electronics, the companies announced. The $2 billion deal was expected; Hitachi said in April it would form a joint venture with the US computer giant.

Roche, one of the world's leading makers of pharmaceuticals, upped its offer by $160 million – to an estimated $2 billion – to rescue a deal it thought was set last December for Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. of Japan, the Financial Times reported. The newspaper said unhappy Chugai stockholders have protested the merger because it involves the spinoff of a diagnostics subsidiary that has been the fastest-growing part of the company.

Ford and Qualcomm Inc. dissolved a joint venture to provide car-based wireless communications, after the auto-maker decided to stop funding it. Wingcast LLC employed 200 people. Ford will explore other ways to offer on-board communications, known as telematics, a spokesman said.

On the heels of last month's crash of a Taipei-to-Hong Kong flight, China Airlines of Taiwan will spend more than $1.5 billion on 12 new jets by year's end, a published report said. The May 25 accident, which killed 225 people and was the company's second fatal crash in four years, involved a 23-year-old plane that was about to be retired.